


Your Eyes

by VampireBadger



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Minor Spoilers, eagle vision - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 03:10:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12644943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampireBadger/pseuds/VampireBadger
Summary: How Bayek found Senu, and how he learned to see the world through her eyes. Minor spoilers for the existence of a certain character.





	Your Eyes

It's Khemu that finds the fledglng eagle, when he's just a waddling toddler with curious little fingers that reach everywhere, and she's a chick too young to be taken from her nest. Khemu carries her into the house where Bayek is working with his bow—the little boy's face is a beaming smile. He has Senu nestled in both hands, although of course she is not yet Senu, not then. She is only a bundle of downy almost-eagle feathers, peering up at Bayek over the top of Khemu's thumb.

Bayek sighs when he sees her, and puts the bow aside. He knows Khemu didn't mean any harm, but now that the little bird's been taken by humans, the other eagles will sense it on her—they'll never accept her back.

Khemu hops forward, arms thrust up, making little chirping noises like a baby bird. Bayek shakes his head and leans closer to examine the chick. She doesn't look injured, and that's something at least. Just small, and vaguely confused. Bayek lets his gaze drift away from the bird, back to Khemu. "And what have you done to this little one, eh?"

His son only chirps again in response.

"Well," Bayek says, carefully taking the chick from Khemu. "Now that she's here, we may as well try and keep her alive." He stands, one hand cupping the chick, the other resting on the back of Khemu's head. "Come with me, son. I will show you what we do next."

Of course, he has no real hope at that point that the eagle will live. He shows Khemu how to clean the chick, how to feed her and care for her more because he wants to show Khemu than because he thinks it'll do any good.

But the little eagle survives. She grows. Someone—Bayek doesn't know if it's him or Aya or if it just kind of grows on her—gives the bird a name. Senu seems to like her new name, as much as she likes her new place in the house. She hops from one perch to the next, amusing Khemu, even making Aya smile. She is something they stop thinking about, really—just a fixture in their lives, the little eagle that Khemu brought home with him one day.

-//-

A month or so on, Bayek starts to feel a little under the weather. He keeps having these moments of… not quite headaches. But something doesn't feel quite right, and he has these flashes of blurred vision. They never last for long, and when he focuses they go away. But it's worrisome all the same. Bayek is a medjay, he needs his sight. And, even more importantly, he is the father of a young son that seems to delight in sticking his fingers into all kinds of trouble. Bayek needs his eyes, for Khemu.

He doesn't tell anyone of his problems. As far as Bayek is concerned, this is his burden and no one else's. Besides, so far the little lapses of concentration have been short and easy to shake off. Bayek himself tends to forget about them, so that half the time when his vision blurs, it takes him completely by surprise.

One night, while he's wandering through the streets of Siwa—it's the dead of night, but Bayek is restless, and he knows these streets intimately—it happens again. Bayek stops dead in his tracks, instinctively reaching for the wall of the house behind him. It feels somehow far away, and Bayek realizes for the first time that this may be more serious than he has been assuming.

It's nearly midnight on the night of the new moon, and Siwa is dark and silent. But now he can see, as if by a dim light—a flickering candle, maybe. And although his vision isn't exactly _clear_ , he can make out something moving, slowly, back and forth. Nothing more than a vague, human shaped blur, but at least clearly a _someone_. Bayek can hear a soft humming, and then—

Clear as a bell, clear as daylight, he hears an eagle's screech. And it could have been any eagle, any bird in the whole of Egypt, but in that moment Bayek _knows_ that it is Senu.

He shakes his head sharply, clearing it, and the dark streets of Siwa come rushing back on him. Bayek blinks and rubs his face, then goes hurrying home as fast as he can. And when he gets there at last, he finds Aya sitting up with Khemu, rocking him gently back to sleep, humming softly as he fusses. A candle nearby casts an unsteady light across the scene, and from the other side of the room, Senu watches. As Bayek knew she must be.

After all, he has seen all this already, through her eyes.

-//-

He hadn't been willing to tell anyone what was happening when he thought it was just a problem with his sight. Now that he knows (he does, he _knows_ ) he's seeing flashes of what Senu sees, there's no chance at all he's going to break his silence. Sometimes Bayek feels a jab of guilt about not telling Aya, but in his own defense, sometimes even he thinks he's crazy.

Bayek takes to training Senu, then. Tells anyone who asks that he's going to use the bird for hunting, but since Senu can't even fly yet, it's not the greatest excuse in the world. Bayek deals with the odd looks with a smile, and eventually people get used to seeing him walk around with Senu perched on his arm or his shoulder.

He keeps having those flashes of what Senu sees, but now that he knows what's happening (just not _why_ or _how_ ), it's easier to handle. Now, instead of shaking it off as quickly as possible, Bayek tries to sit with the visions for a while, focusing, trying to understand what he's seeing. Eagles have good vision, he knows that, but all Bayek ever gets from Senu are vague shapes and blurred colors. The problem isn't with her—it must be with him. So he practices, teaching himself to interpret.

Eventually, and more or less on accident, he discovers that height will help him. When Bayek has the time, between his duties as Siwa's protector and his role as Khemu's father, he climbs with Senu up to the high places of the village. He goes up the cliffs, high enough to make the village look like a toy below him, and sits with his legs hanging over the edge. Up here, when he looks out at the world through the eagle's eyes, everything looks _almost_ clear.

"Why don't you try flying, eh girl?" he asks Senu one morning, as they sit on the cliff and watch the sun come up. He's looking at it through her eyes, at what looks like an orange streak smeared across the sky. His own voice sounds distant, but Bayek's getting used to that too. By the patient way Senu sits with him, cooing and occasionally turning to preen a bit, he doesn't think she minds much either. "I think it's about time you learned to stretch your wings a bit." She's big enough to fly now. She _should_ be flying, but Bayek can't teach her, and Khemu had taken her from her mother too young. For now, there's not much Bayek can do about it.

-//-

Bayek's with Khemu when it happens. Aya's out running errands, so it's just Bayek and Khemu at home. Bayek is sitting cross legged in front of his son. Khemu is stretched out on his stomach, playing with a wooden horse Bayek had carved for him a while ago. Bayek's not even thinking about Senu—the last he'd seen, the eagle was asleep on the roof. But now, suddenly…

It starts with this… _feeling_ in his gut. A kind of trembly, nervous feeling, like standing on the edge of something, ready to jump. Bayek's breath catches. He doesn't know what this is, not quite yet, but he knows somehow that this is important.

And then the feeling of tension, of waiting, unfurls inside him like the spreading of wings. Bayek's vision snaps away from Khemu and suddenly he's with Senu, he _is_ Senu, and they're flying. Siwa stretches out below them, dusty brown hills rolling out behind that. It's all so clear, every detail crisp and vivid—they can make out every person on the streets below, every branch on every tree. 

And they're flying.

_"Papo?"_

It makes no sense. It's not even possible. But they're flying, they're seeing, they're _together_.

"Pappo!"

Bayek jerks back to himself. Khemu is on his feet, both of his little fists digging into Bayek's shoulder, staring disapprovingly at his father. Bayek takes a shuddering breath and reaches around Khemu to draw the boy close. His heart is still pounding, and his head spins with the memory of what he's just seen. He can still feel, distantly, that unearthly connection to Senu. She's circling Siwa, stretching her wings, testing her limits on her first flight, and a part of Bayek wants to rush back there, to feel all that again. It would be so _easy_.

But he doesn't. Instead, he just holds Khemu against him, feeling the beating of his son's heart against his chest, the milky smell of his breath. "Oh, Khemu," he says, standing and lifting Khemu with him. "Your father is having a very strange day."

-//-

He comes to rely on Senu. She's his own personal sixth sense, and he relies on what she sees as much as what he does. There's a space in his head now that belongs to her, and a place in her mind that belongs to him. And there are times, when they fly together, that the two of them seem to truly think as one.

Aya likes to joke that she sometimes feels she should feel jealous of Senu. She _can_ joke, because as the years go by, Bayek still chooses to keep that impossible connection to himself. Maybe the gods have chosen him for something, that's the only way he can explain this to himself—but he's not sure Aya would like that explanation.

At first, he worries that people will notice his connection to Senu. He worries they'll think he's cursed, or just… wrong. But no one ever questions him. They're already used to seeing him with Senu, and if the two of them are closer now—well, maybe it adds something to the medjay reputation. A little bit of strangeness is not a bad thing, for one who would call himself protector.

The only time he ever comes close to telling anyone else is when Khemu is about six. He's old enough to be out with his friends, playing alone and without his parents' supervision, so Bayek and Aya have a rare moment alone. They plan to meet up on the roof, but Bayek gets there first. He sits, waiting for Aya. Halfway across town, Senu circles over the street where Khemu and his friends play.

Maybe he’s not _quite_ ready to stop watching his son quite yet.

Vaguely, he hears Aya coming up the stairs, and pulls his mind back, away from Senu. Aya stands in front of him, a soft smile on her face. “You looked far away,” she says.

“Never far from you,” Bayek says, and moves aside to make space for her at his side.

“I called for you,” Aya says. She tucks herself against him, up against his side where she has always fit so perfectly. Bayek reaches over and puts his arm across her shoulders.

“I’m sorry I didn’t hear,” he says. He still needs to work on staying aware of his surroundings while he’s with Senu.

“I don’t mind,” she says, then digs her finger into his side. “ _Much_. You always look so… I don’t know, happy.”

Bayek smiles, but doesn’t offer an answer.

“What were you thinking about?”

Bayek looks over at her, and in that instant he _almost_ tells her. But how could he describe the feeling of seeing through Senu's eyes? The rush of flight, the thrill of knowing more than he should?”

“Just thinking,” he says, and leaves it at that.

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this one ready for a while, but I didn't want to post it until I finished the game in case I accidentally ended up contradicted anything. But I finally finished today, which means:  
> (a) This gets posted!  
> (b) I would love to talk to anyone else that's finished and wants to talk about Bayek or anything. Feel free to drop a comment if you want to chat.


End file.
